The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, over the weekend urged students and graduates to be critical ‘consumers’ of political communication, as the Election 2024 gathers momentum.
That implies students and graduates ought to do more research, track, gather empirical evidence, and thus challenge politicians and their respective political parties with evidence-based communication.
By doing so, the sector minister, also the Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe in the Ashanti Region said the nation’s political discourse would be well shaped in a way that politicians and political parties could not take the electorate for granted.
Mr Adutwum, gave the advice when speaking at the 16th congregation of the Sunyani Technical University (STU) on the theme “Technical and Professional Skills Training-Solution to the High Rate of Youth Unemployment in Ghana” in Sunyani on Saturday.
In all a total of 1,863 graduands were awarded Bachelor of Technology (B-Tech), Higher National Diploma (HND) and Diploma Certificates in Engineering, TVET, Applied Science and Technology, Built Environment and Applied Arts, as well as Business and Management Studies disciplines.
Of the graduating class, 1,090, representing 58.5 per cent were males and 773 representing 41.5 per cent females.
Dr Adutwum condemned what he described as the “slash and burn” politics going on in the country, saying such unprofitable politics remained the bane of accelerated national development.
“I don’t believe in the ongoing slash and burn politics where politicians and political parties try to make their opponents unpopular and unattractive in the eyes of the people, despite the level of achievement,” he stated.
As well-enlightened and discerning minds, Dr Adutwum thus underlined the need for graduates and students to remain critical and shape the nation’s political discourses with evidence-based communication.
That would also make them well-enlightened and thereby empower them to make informed decisions when they go to the polls in the next General Election.
“We now have a President who allows his Ministers to innovate,” he said, stating that through innovations the government had performed creditably, and made a lot of achievements, spread across the length and breadth of the country.
“This is clear evidence we expect graduates and students to gather, and also pull ideas together to push the development of the country forward, but not the slash and burn politics,” Dr Adutwum said.
Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister, noted that as a chunk of the nation’s population, the youth represented the future, saying the government remained committed to providing quality TVET education that would catalyse to tackle unemployment.
She therefore advised the graduates to embrace the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship to create jobs for themselves and others and lauded the STU for its commitment to churning out quality graduates embedded with employable skills.
“We therefore expect the graduates to apply your skills and help build a prosperous nation and better society for all as you enter the job market,” Mad Owusu-Banahene stated.
Engineer Professor Kwadwo Adinkrah-Appiah, the Vice Chancellor of the STU, said the University had chalked some successes, saying the total staff population of the institution, which stood at 746 (629 Full-Time and 117 Part-Time) in 2023, currently stands at 890 (719 Fulltime and 171 Part-Time), with student population soaring from 7,100 to 7,775, an increase of over 9.0 per cent.